A Company of Outcasts
by VilyaSage
Summary: FFTA. The First (and so far only complete) Tale of Clan Iris. The forming of a clan that seems like it just might be fate...


A Company of Outcasts

The First Tale of Clan Iris

By: Vilya (with the essential musing of Feonyx)

Hello everybody! I'm…well…an authoress! And Feonyx (an author—I bet you could have guessed that) and myself are going to be writing a series-type thing. Stuff you need to know: It's about FFTA, the characters that become part of the clan are entirely made up and ours, and many of the events are ours too. Welcome to…um…well, this. This prologue! That's what it is! And I disclaimed already. So there. Besides, I haven't got more than my lunch money anyway. Oh, right! All the stuff that happens in this fic, unless stated otherwise, happens after the conclusion of FFTA. Get with the reading!

            Elena counted the surrounding opponents for what must have been the millionth time. There were still eight, and they were all still standing, and Kief, her moogle companion, was still a full three feet and perhaps more shorter than her but was doing a remarkable job of defending the backs of her knees. 

            "Is there any hope of getting out of this?" Kief wondered aloud. Elena snorted. 

            "Such pessimism. Of course there is." As she said this, one of the humans of the clan they were fighting lashed out with his sword and struck Kief, bringing the moogle to his knees.

            "I can't do this on a daily basis, you know," he remarked, trying to keep the pain from his voice.

            "That's it," said Elena in a very finalizing way, and one of her long ears twitched slightly. "We're getting a clan." 

            About five years ago, only a few months before the placement of judges at all of the battles in Ivalice (save those held in a Jagd), Elena had vowed to herself that she would never join a clan. Clans, it appeared, wanted nothing but to defeat other clans just to get cheaper prices at local shops. And killing other people just wasn't right, in her eyes.

            And before judges, that was what happened. Many clan members died daily in engagements over stupid things, like who got to claim the lands around the Eluut Sands as their own. 

            When Elena had first left her family, she'd had every intention of joining a clan, becoming a powerful Fencer, turning into a real asset for any clan. She'd joined up with a small one for a while, but had left in disgust when the leader, a materialistic moogle Black Mage, chose not to send her on battle missions for some reason as yet unknown to her.

            Traveling to Sprohm in the hopes of finding a new clan there, she found the city turned into a battlefield, with the clan known as the Sprohmknights engaging a group of viera and one moogle in the clan called the Rangers. Judges were not yet required for such things, and Elena watched from the sidelines as the group of Rangers were mercilessly slaughtered. 

            Thus, she had left the idea of clans behind altogether, and had spent five years traveling alone, making money from what dispatch missions she could take and every so often trading in her weapon for a new one. There was something about the prospect of a new rapier, and the power that went with it, that always excited her.

            Somewhere around five years later, Elena had been wandering through the Koringwood and had come across a moogle, obviously a Thief if his dark green clothes were any indication, running from some unknown threat that she could hear crashing through the trees from perhaps a quarter of a mile away.

            The moogle stumbled, and Elena saw that he was hurt, but he stood again and continued to run. As silently as she could, she followed alongside him, wincing as he tripped again and caught his ankle in a tangle of vines.

            By this time his pursuers, who turned out to be a trio of amazingly fast bangaa and a slightly panting human, had caught up to him. The lead bangaa, and by either coincidence or fate also the tallest and bulkiest, advanced on the moogle, long spear raised.

            "I don't think so!" Elena had hissed, springing from her cover and standing between the moogle and the bangaa. In one swift motion, she'd drawn her rapier and brought it singing down, slicing the very air and sending it at all four opponents in a Piercethrough attack. 

            Knocked silly for at least a few moments by the sudden collision with one another's heads, the pursuers stood dazed, giving Elena time to turn and run, almost effortlessly grabbing the lightweight moogle around the middle and half-throwing him over her shoulder in the process.

            "Wow," he'd said into her ear. "Where'd you learn to do that?"

            "I had a Flamberge once," Elena said blandly. "Useful, if you know what you're doing." Her tone suggested to the Thief that he ask no more questions, and, being pretty good at picking up on that sort of thing, the moogle remained silent.

            When Elena judged them to be far enough away, she set the moogle down and sat herself, beginning to rummage through the few things she carried. "So who are you?" the moogle asked conversationally. "Aside from my rescuer and a darn good runner, I mean."

            "Elena," she'd said, still rummaging. The moogle shifted, wincing slightly, and sat with his elbows on his knees and his head resting on his hands.

            "Ok. I'm Kief," said the moogle, grinning in the typical moogle way. "Except I don't have a predisposition to saying 'kupo' after every six words or so, and as long as you don't mind—"

            "A blessing, I assure you."

            "Oh, good! Then would you mind if I…say, what are you doing?" Kief asked, tilting his head in a curious way. "Looking for something?"

            "For this," Elena said, pulling a potion—her last—from the bag and tossing it to Kief, who caught it rather clumsily. "Those your thief reflexes, are they?" Elena asked with a sly grin.

            "Very funny," said Kief, but he grinned back, pulled the top off the bottle of potion and drank nearly all of it in one gulp. "Never did see why those guys didn't want a White Mage around. They _can_ be useful. I mean who wouldn't…I'm babbling again, aren't I?"

            "Well, it's preferable to running from…what were those, anyway?" Elena queried. "You steal something from them and forget to be stealthy about it?" 

            "Well…you might say that. Except I was plenty stealthy about it, believe me, I wouldn't still be thieving if I weren't at least good, if not exceptional, but the problem was that I stole from _them_."

            "Rather than the innocent-looking nu mou sleeping under the tree about three yards away?" Elena asked sarcastically.

            "No, rather than the enemy. Those guys are from my clan. Or rather, from what _used_ to be my clan. They kicked me out and then one of them got it in their head to _run_ me out and if possible just plain kill me because what good was I to any other clan if I stole from its members too?"

            "Kief."

            "Yes?"

            "Punctuate the sentences, would you?"

            Kief blushed. "Sorry. When I'm…well…excited…I just sort of talk on without thinking about what the things I'm saying sound like. But I'll try, of course."

            "Ok. How did you steal from your own clan? Don't you know them?"

            "Skimble—he's that bangaa Warrior who was leading the charge—and the enemy bangaa warrior looked exactly the same, I mean _exactly_, I swear it! So I was trying to steal the armor off the enemy and ended up taking Skimble's instead. But I told you, I'm a competent Thief, so he didn't even notice I'd done it until the Dragoon speared him through the middle. You'd have loved the look on his face!" Kief added with a giggle, but Elena was frowning disgustedly.

            "I despise clan engagements," she said in a disgusted voice. "Nothing but pain and arrogance to come from being in a clan."

            "That's not true!" Kief had protested. "Sure, they got a little…over-reactive…at times, but my old clan…it was so much fun! You get to see the world!" Kief added, exhilaration evident in his eyes. 

            Elena, about to explain why she felt the way she did, stopped. She didn't understand why she felt she needed to tell her story to this moogle. She didn't even know why she'd saved him, except it had felt like the right thing to do at the time. And as he rambled on about his clan, he'd jumped to his feet with remembered excitement, and she'd realized how alone she'd truly been for those five years.

            "Kief," she said, and he paused. "How about you come with me?"

            "Where to?"

            "No, I mean…wherever I might happen to go. I haven't got a clan, but I've got myself, and frankly I've had enough of having just myself. Care to head to the nearest town…I think it's Sprohm…and prove your competence?"

            "No," Kief said, and he said it so plainly that Elena had to run it a few times in her head before she registered it.

            "No?"

            "I don't steal from regular people. I mean…well, clan members are regular people too, but…I'm only a Thief in an engagement. And maybe to play a joke or two once in a while. But I won't steal from city people."

            "Good," said Elena with satisfaction.

            "If it's so good, then why'd you ask?"

            "I don't put up with criminals. Now come on."

            The more Kief talked about life in a clan, the more Elena thought she might have been wrong in her first assessment. But she'd promised, and in a way that was more binding to her than a written agreement. She would not join a clan, as close as she was to wanting to. She just let Kief talk.

            And a few weeks later found the two of them as close friends, partners and in a situation to which there seemed no solution. None except to fight their way out or be slaughtered. 

            "Any brilliant plans, fearless leader?" Kief asked, barely blocking some other weapon with his little knife.

            "Who made me leader?" Elena wondered aloud, but with an inward sigh for what she was about to do she gripped her rapier in both hands and shifted her weight so that she could easily push off into a turn.

            "Duck," she instructed Kief, forgetting momentarily that, on his knees, he was already at half his usual height, which in turn was about half hers. As fast as she possibly could, she pushed off and spun on the ball of one foot, striking each opponent several times in succession and completing the twirl facing exactly the same direction she'd started in. Around her, feathers cascades to the ground at her enemies' feet.

            "What was that?" Kief asked, having watched what parts his eye could follow from the ground. He blew a stray bit of down off his nose appreciatively.

            "Featherblow," Elena said, grinning mischievously at the eight members of Clan Marble who were either on their knees or in blissful unconsciousness. "Come on," she said, and grabbed the Thief by the back of his dark green garb—he'd explained from the start that the usual spring-green type clothing typical of Thieves had no appeal to him; it was difficult to hide while wearing that color and it just wasn't his color.

            However, this time Kief, who was rather quickly losing consciousness himself, wasn't thrown hastily over a shoulder but carried much like a small child might have been in both of Elena's arms, and as the Judge handed her the 2000 gil reward, she held it in one hand and set off at a brisk run.

            "To Cyril," she said to herself, and almost involuntarily her pace quickened. Cyril, by far her favorite city, intrigued her, as city life always had and probably always would, and even with such pressing matters as her current ones she was anticipatory. 

            Cyril was, in truth, a short distance, comparatively, from where she was, which she estimated as somewhere near the southern edge of the Nubswood, but the run and the extra weight, compiled with the ever-present idea that she had to be _fast_ in getting there, made the trip seem like it took forever.

            Nonetheless, when she arrived in Cyril, she rounded a building on the way to the pub and literally ran into…someone. Whoever it was dropped something that landed with the sound of breaking glass, and a sapling sprouted from the tiled pathway, quickly growing into a full tree, breaking the tiles and sending Elena and whoever she had run into sprawling back.

            "That is the fourth time in ten days!" said a voice from around the other side of the tree. Elena glanced over and saw a nu mou in Black Mage's clothes, his hat on the ground next to him and his staff high in the branches of the tree. "I simply will not stand for this any longer!"

            "Well if this happens often," Elena remarked sourly, "I'd say your options are either to go live in a forest or try something _new_."

            "I tried Astra earlier. Gave the whole house a particularly malicious strain of the Salika Flu. How else would I end up here?" the nu mou asked as though he'd rather have been somewhere that was more open to trees randomly growing whenever he dropped something.

            "Black Mages can't use Astra," Elena said aloud after a moment's thought. 

            "I am not a Black Mage!" the nu mou said, throwing his hat on the ground, and then realizing it looked foolish to do so and picking it up again. "I am an aspiring Alchemist."

            "Well, you don't want the city watch to find out you've put a tree in the middle of their…street, do you? Look, whoever you are, I'm in a hurry," Elena added when the nu mou just stood there as though he didn't comprehend what she was saying. "Do me a favor and I'll deny ever having seen this tree before in my life. _And_ I'll get your staff down."

            The nu mou paused to consider this. After a few seconds' thought and the memory of his failed spell from that morning, he nodded. "Done." Rather hesitantly, he held out a hand. "I am Newander."

            "Elena," she replied hastily, and rather than shake Newander's offered hand, she placed Kief in him arms. "To the pub with you, and don't you move from there or make trees sprout until I get back. And if you really want to be nice you could find me a White Mage and save me half of some trouble, but that doesn't mean try being one yourself, I know nu mou can do that…" Newander watched in a sort of detached amazement. Elena had run off, but her words were still carried back, and she'd just left this moogle…Newander shook his head.

            "'To the pub with me,' she says. And what am I to do there? Watch some new drunkard drain his mug ten times on a bet and then break the doorframe trying to get out the window?" Nonetheless, Newander spied a couple of members of the watch rounding a corner a ways down the street, and turned as discreetly as possible and, with a glance back over his shoulder in the direction Elena had gone, went to the pub.

********

            It was a sunny day, at least in Cyril, and despite the unusualness of a tree about three times his height growing in the middle of the street, Connor would have placed this as an ordinary day too. Except after everything that had just happened to him, no days were ever ordinary.

            Still, he mused as he pushed open the door to the local pub, it _was_ nice not to have to take orders from idiots. And a pub was a rather new experience—he'd never been in one. Briefly the idea of buying a drink crossed his mind, and he stored the thought away. Right now, his eyes were adjusting to the relatively dim light and his brain was registering everything it possibly could about the pub's occupants. 

            Over in one corner, at a set of tables that might as well have had a sign over them proclaiming in flashing letters 'trouble, you should run' were a group of rowdy bangaa, a few humans, and one or two shady nu mou or viera. Closer to the front, more in the light and looking rather less scruffy than the raucous troublemakers-in-waiting were several small clusters of varying species. _Clans_, Connor reasoned. There wasn't much else they could be. There was a small crowd around the board where missions were posted, a smaller crowd made of mostly moogles at a counter near the mission board, and of course every seat as close to the drinks as possible was full.

            There was also, off to the side, a small lounge-type area with a fireplace, several worn but comfortable-looking couches and chairs, a few small tables for the purpose, Connor could only assume, through planned thought, of playing games of chance whether for gil or not, and a stairway leading to—and this Connor knew from experience—a long hall with several small rooms, meant for staying the night or on occasion a few nights. 

            Seated at one small table were a nu mou and a moogle, both Black Mages, with a playing board between them, and on the board were several round black and white stones. The moogle placed a white stone and grinned, replacing several of the black ones with white as well. 

            Closer to the fire was another nu mou and a viera, though neither was involved in any activity outside mulling over their thoughts. The nu mou would occasionally glare down at his Black Mage's hat, which was on the floor, and the viera kept glancing up at something and then looking at the floor again, once again lost in her mind.

            Connor was turning to head to the bar for a drink, for some reason unable to get the silent viera and nu mou out of his own thoughts, nearly collided with a human White Mage headed for the stairs.

            "My apologies," Connor offered graciously. The White Mage, eyes on the floor, mumbled an apology in return and hurried off. Connor shrugged. No use worrying about it, he decided. 

            "Excuse me," said Elena, looking up as the White Mage passed. The human stopped and met her eyes, then hastily looked away. "We were wondering if your clan had a couple of extra spaces available for new members?"

            "_She_ was wondering," Newander clarified. "I'm only in this because if I'm not that moogle will blackmail me from here to the end of eternity." 

            "I have no clan," the White Mage said, and ran up the stairs before either Elena or Newander could say any more. And both of them were cut off again (Elena from a sort of surprised remark and Newander from a rather long speech about his detest of Black Mage garb) by the arrival of Kief, who held a dagger in one hand and was deftly twirling it through his fingers.

            "Best watch that I don't empty your wallet, mage," he said jokingly to Newander. The nu mou grimaced sourly. "On a darker note, though…I'm sorry Elena. No one I talked to had room for two more clan members, much less three."

            "Three!" cried Newander in an outrage, standing abruptly and crushing the point of his hat with the end of his foot. "How dare you bring me into this! And if it is so difficult for a couple of wandering imbeciles to find spots in a current clan then why do you not _make your own_?!" 

            "That's it!" said Elena excitedly, and Kief grinned. "We'll name our own clan and advertise for members. There've got to be plenty of clanless…like that White Mage. Remind me tomorrow morning and we'll ask him. There was enough left after I went to the shop to get us two rooms, right Kief?" she added, looking at the moogle with barely-contained excitement.

            "Oh, there was plenty. There's still about five hundred gil left, if we need it. How late is it, anyway?"

            "Not ver…Kief! You were just outside! You know it can't be past afternoon!" Elena laughed. 

            "Oh yeah, that's right. So, anyone want a drink? First one's on the house for a customer with a room," he added enticingly.

            "I doubt they carry the kind of drink that is my preference," Newander said with disdain. 

            "I don't drink ale and such," Elena said, standing and stretching. "Actually, there are some things I'd like to do, so I think I'll swipe a couch before anyone else can and begin the plotting for a clan. Newander, if you'd like to help—"

            "I have other business," said Newander, moving to the table where he had set up various flasks and colored liquids that Elena and Kief had speculated must have had something to do with Alchemy, or at least aspirations.

            "Alright then," said Kief, not in the least disheartened. Walking over to the bar, Kief placed three gil on the table and received a mug of something he'd never had before but saw no harm in trying.

            Elena, sitting now on a small couch instead of the chair by the fire, and with a writing stick and a few sheets of paper in hand, began to compose an advertisement asking for members to join a just-starting clan. When she was finished, and once she felt she'd glared enough at the spot where the ink had leaked out in a big blotch, she pinned it on the mission board next to the various papers asking for aid. 

            "Someday that'll be us," she reassured herself, looking over some of the other missions. "Doing things to help other people, and doing them as a clan." 

            Connor, having finished his third glass of the only non-alcoholic drink in the place, was watching amusedly as a small moogle in dark green clothes argued animatedly with a couple of other moogles, these obviously Animists. He laughed to himself, remembering his wish not to attract attention, as both Animists took out musical instruments and played them in a sort of harmonious discord. The other moogle—by several minutes of study, a Thief—tapped the blunt edge of his dagger against his glass in an attempt to produce a similar sound.

            This musical argument carried on for some moments before the Animists got their tones together and promptly invited the Thief to rap his glass along to the beat. A bell, a horn and a half-filled glass didn't make for quite the trio it might've if the third had been a real instrument and their owners hadn't all been tipsy, and when the glass finally shattered and spilled all over the floor, bar, and its drinker, the bartender had had it and practically threw all three of them out. 

            Connor watched as the Thief walked rather crookedly over to where the viera from before was sitting, half-dozing by the looks of it, but her expression grew annoyed once she noticed the state her partner was in. Sharply, she pointed to the stairs. The moogle slowly headed for them, and up them, tripping only once, which, Connor mused, was pretty good for a little thing like that who'd drunk some of the strongest ale in the place.

            Off to the side, closer now to the nu mou and moogle playing the game with black and white stones, was the nu mou who had previously been with the viera. On the table where he sat were many glass containers full of liquids, and the nu mou was writing something very particularly in a small book.

            Curious, Connor rose and slowly walked, the long way, to where he could better watch what the nu mou was doing. When it was obvious he was thoroughly engrossed in his work, Connor reached out and lifted the flask closest to him, staring curiously at its colored contents. 

            "What are you doing?" asked the nu mou testily. Connor, startled, dropped the flask, which shattered and spilled its contents in a puddle on the floor. That puddle was quickly absorbed into the floor and immediately afterwards a sapling sprouted. Elena saw this, sat up and gasped, but the sapling's growth halted at about the height of Connor's knees. 

            Newander arched a furious eyebrow and sent a glare at the newcomer Soldier that conveyed three basic ideas. The first was that Soldiers should not touch things that did not belong to them, and if he had his way that would be everything in the world with the possible exception of the ground directly under Connor's feet. The second thing was that if he went away now, Connor's life might not be so bad, but if he stayed that would almost certainly change.

            The third thing, however, was conveyed with the most impact and was the most direct message. The general idea was as such: "Occasionally, in the pursuit of such a high calling as alchemy, one must deal with a tree or two exploding through the tiles.  If you _must_ help, go get a broom to sweep up the shards."  

            Connor considered this. He didn't quite know where to find a broom, but he suspected that, as this was a pub, they would have one, and he walked off in search of it, returning momentarily with said sweeping device and making a valiant attempt at sweeping while under the piercing, unrelenting gaze of an angry nu mou…well, he was dressed like a Black Mage, but he wasn't wearing the hat. 

        "Well…at least he knows how to use a broom," Newander said scathingly.

            "And do you ride one?" Connor shot back testily. "Look here, you. I dropped your…fertilizer…on the floor and it grew a tree and I'm sorry for it, so I helped clean it because it was my fault, I repaid you for it, so I won't take any of that. That commenting."

            "Tell me something, Soldier," said Newander; his last word sounded as though such was lower than the common garden slug. "Have you been drinking?"

        "It's nothing to you," Connor retorted.

            "Newander. Leave him alone." Both of them looked up at Elena, who was staring rather intensely but not so as to be called a full glare. "You, Soldier. It's best to just ignore him," she added with the subtlest eye-roll. "Kief and I have been trying for…well about five hours now. I'm hoping we'll get better with practice."

            Elena watched the Soldier lean the broom against the wall, turn, and nod to Newander. He then extended his hand to her.

        "Connor," he said amiably. She took his hand and shook it.

        "Elena."

            "Nice meeting you, then. I think I'll be going." Connor, with a deferential nod to Elena and a wink meant solely to annoy at Newander, turned to go.

            "Wait," said Elena, and the Soldier turned back. "How would you like to join a clan?"

        "Depends. Whose clan?"

            "Mine." Elena's words shocked even her, and Newander looked like he was about to faint on the floor. No one had ever said it was hers…but it had just seemed the natural thing to say. 

            Connor considered this for a minute. And then for another. A clan…he'd never been in one. He also hadn't been particularly interested, but there was something intriguing about Elena, Newander and the moogle member of the trio. 

            "Is _he_ in it?" Connor asked, jerking his thumb at Newander. Elena nodded. "Then I suppose so. If only because then I can annoy the daylights and half the darknesses out of the Black Mage here. You need to wear your hat, man," he added. Newander scowled.

            "If it weren't for the fact that my staff is still up in that tree in the square, I wouldn't even _be_ here!" the nu mou complained.

            "Then leave," Elena said simply. "You're not being forced to remain. I'll get your staff down in the morning and you can be on your way. Have we a deal?" Newander's mouth dropped open.

            "What? No! No, we don't have a deal! I wouldn't dream of leaving this half-clan, not for a million gil! If I leave," Newander added, apparently looking for a non-sentimental way to justify his desire to stay, "I'll continue to be thrown out of every establishment in which I choose to reside because of the _incompetence_," here he glared at Connor, "of that residence's residents."

            "I don't know about the two of you," said Elena after an awkward pause, "but I'm going to bed. Oh—the two of you will be sharing the second room, now. Seeing as, far as I can tell, you don't have a room for yourself, Connor. If I hear one complaint, Newander," she continued as the nu mou's mouth fell open again, "I'll make this a permanent arrangement."

            "Wow. She gets authoritative when she's…what was she just then anyway?" Connor asked.

            "I think it's safe to assume that was exhaustion," Newander said dryly. "It's been that kind of day."

            "Ah. I understand completely. Hey, Newander," Connor said, stopping on his own trip to the stairs.

        "This best be important."

            "What do you say to, well, something like a temporary truce? Since we're part of the same clan and all that."

            Newander paused. He looked down at the tree that had broken through the tiled floor, noted how it was already beginning to wither, thought of his staff high in the tree from earlier, remembered that fate had thrown him into this without his consent, and grinned maliciously. Connor took a reflexive step back.

        "Not on your life."

********                              

            The next morning dawned cloudy. Kief, feeling about as good as the weather looked, groaned and mumbled something about not thieving in a storm when Elena shook him awake. 

            "Come on, you. You pay the price for drinking just like Connor will," Elena said, though her tone was gentler than perhaps it should have been. "We've got things to do this morning, and the rest of the day if we can."

            "And what might those be?" Kief asked, rolling over and pulling the blanket over his head. After a moment's silence, he rolled back over and peeked out. "And who in the world is Connor?" 

            "He is our newest clan member. He's a soldier. And Newander _hates_ him," she added with a sort of sarcastic happiness. "And I'm hoping we get more clan members as the day goes on. I've talked to the owner of the pub, and he says he'd be honored if we were based in Cyril; apparently Cyril hasn't had a home clan in months."

            "Does that mean we live here, or something?" 

            "No, actually I think we get a building close by," said Connor as he walked past the door. "Good morning, short and tall." 

            "Do you often greet people like that?" Kief asked, giving Connor a curious stare.

            "When the spirit moves me."

            "Um…yes. Well." Elena looked back and forth between them, shrugged, and headed out, but called back, "Kief! I was serious! We have things to do!" Kief groaned and pulled the pillow over his head.

            "I get massacred by some renegade Bangaa and then drunk and soaked by something I can't even recall the name of and then sent to bed by my angry best friend who, I might point out, also has become the silently unanimous clan leader and she expects me to get up and pretend it was all a dream, or something?" he asked in a muffled voice. Connor laughed quietly.

            Elena's head appeared in the doorway. "You weren't massacred. You were just beaten up a little. You," she said to Connor, "out. Down the stairs and such. Newander's ranting about something and chances are you're involved."

            "Oh really?" Connor asked, his face gaining a sly look and his walk changing to that of someone about to pull of something both outstandingly complicated and yet deceptively simple. 

            Elena shook her head. She wasn't going to get involved in this one. Though she did pause at the top of the stairs to call, one more time, "I _meant_ it Kief!" before continuing to the mission board and looking again at the advertisement for their clan.

            "We need a name," she mused. "A good name. Something with power behind it." Reaching up, she pulled down a paper with details about a dispatch mission written on it, studying it as she joined Connor, Newander and the newly-arrived Kief, the former two bickering about one thing or another and the latter looking like he still wanted to be in bed.

            "Come on, we can take this mission," she said, setting the paper down in front of Kief, who picked it up and frowned at it.

            "Suppose I don't feel like a battle right now?" Newander took a break from arguing to ask.

            "Suppose I don't feel like getting your rod back right now," Elena retorted. Newander gave an over-exaggerated sigh. 

            "Come on, let's go," said Kief, now quite happy to be awake. "Maybe we'll get enough gil for decent weapons." 

            "Speaking of weapons," Newander said pointedly. "My rod?" he asked when he received three perplexed stares.

            "Oh, right. We'd better get that," said Connor, smiling slightly. "Since without the hat _or_ the rod you're not really a Black Mage."

            "I'll have you know—"

            "Neither of you are going to know anything if this continues," Elena warned. "Let's just go." The four of them got up and headed for the door, Kief walking out first. Thus, when he stopped very suddenly, Connor tripped over him, and Newander over him, and the three of them landed in a heap with poor Kief on the bottom.

            "Yeah, we're coordinated," said Kief in a squashed voice. 

            "Why did you stop?" asked Elena, looking down at the three piled members of the clan. "Something wrong?"

            "Out there," said Kief, sighing in relief as Newander and Connor stood. "It's an engagement. Right in the middle of Cyril. And worse, it's _them_. The ones that were chasing us. And they're fighting…the clan from Sprohm, I think."

            The four of them watched as the battle began, realizing after a loud whistle that the Judge was somewhere close above their heads. Perhaps on top of the pub itself. Most of the combatants, Connor noted with some interest, were bangaa—that made the battle fierce and mostly physical. One bangaa on each side was a White Monk, but the one on the side of the Sprohm clan was obviously the stronger. 

            The other early-morning patrons of the pub had noticed that there were four people, none of them even the same species, standing outside the door, and the majority of them had pushed outside as well. Elena glanced around and noticed the White Mage from the night before, looking at the ground, but his face held a disgusted expression.

            "Pushed out with the crowd?" Elena asked softly. The White Mage's head snapped up, and his eyes went wide.

            "Um. Yes. Um. I was. Uh." 

            "You alright?"

            "Yes." Elena realized at this point that the voice the White Mage was speaking with was quite feminine.

            "You're a girl White Mage!" Kief hissed gleefully. The White Mage's face reddened and she looked at the ground again.

            "Yes. I am. Of course I am. A White Mage. Yes."

            Kief and Elena looked at each other and shrugged. The engagement was nearing its end and most of the pub's customers had gone back inside to their various drinks, food, or games of black-and-white-stones. A few bangaa and humans, and a couple nu mou, and the four members of Clan…something…were all that remained as the engagement was won. The losers picked up their wounded and sulked off. The winners, not a felled member among them, headed rowdily for Sprohm.

            Seeing this, it was several moments before Elena noticed him. Though given recent events, she would've just as easily marked him as female. One of the bangaa White Monks was lying half-dead in the street! How could his own clan, whichever it was, have left him behind?

            "Kief!" Elena's voice startled the moogle. It had a definite edge to it, like a newly-sharpened knife, except it made him want to listen and sort of planted the idea in his head that if he didn't he'd be sorry. 

            "Coming!" Kief jumped up and ran after the viera, who was currently making swift tracks across the ground to where the bangaa was lying. 

            "Shall we?" Connor asked. Newander, for perhaps the only time in his life, threw off the belief that alchemy was more important than anything at all ever, and followed the Soldier across the square.

            "This wouldn't be good, I'd imagine," Newander said upon their arrival. 

            "Imagination isn't one of your strong…er…yes, it isn't. Isn't good, I mean." Connor decided that, under the circumstances, it was better to save the insults for when the aspiring Alchemist wasn't expecting it. 

            "You!" Elena called, this time directed at the White Mage from before. She looked up again, eyes going wide, and took a step back.

            "Yes?" she asked tentatively.

            "You're a White Mage. You agreed to that, even. Get over here and _be_ a White Mage."

            "…What?"

            "Healing magic. I understand it's the usual for someone in your employment. Are you going to help or not?" Elena and the White Mage locked eyes. Elena's soft gold ones were unrelenting and almost pleading all at once. The White Mage's deep blue ones yielded almost instantly. She said nothing.

            "Fine then. Kief, and we better have gil left you little thief, run off to the shop down the road and…oh, forget it," Elena finished, though those words were said with some relief. The White Mage had joined them after all.

            With a muttered resolution of, "I will not fail again," the White Mage raised her staff high and brought it whistling down, connecting solidly with the bangaa. Kief, Elena and Connor gasped, but Newander only nodded. 

            Slowly, almost as though a Time Mage's spell were slowing it down, the various cuts and bruises faded from the unconscious bangaa. Connor and Newander, shocking the others, cooperated in carrying the bangaa inside the building that had been designated theirs, as the newest home clan, and set him on the sofa.

            "Well," said Kief after a while. "You. In the white. Why'd you follow us?"

            "Um," said the White Mage, evidently at a loss. "It just seemed like the thing to do, I guess. I'm sorry if I bothered you…I'll leave, really…"

            "No, no," said Elena, the spark of an idea in her eyes. "Stay. By all means. That's one of the things we're missing, come to it. A White Mage. Want to join the clan?" she asked the White Mage directly. Anything before that had basically been loud mumbling.

            "Your clan? But…but I'd be useless to you. As a clan member I mean. I'm…I can't. I'm not…just…"

            "She was serious, you know," said Newander dryly. "And it's not as bad as you'd think." The others stared at him, awestruck. "With this Soldier here, it's likely worse."

            "You'll scare her off!" Kief warned. The White Mage made a sound that, after a moment, they realized was laughter. Albeit quiet, reserved laughter.

            "I think I want to. I mean. If it doesn't bother you. I'm Maya," she said, almost as an afterthought.

            "Kief, Connor, Newander, Elena," said Elena, gesturing to each of them in turn. "Oh, and Nameless-Bangaa-on-the-Sofa."

            "My name," hissed the bangaa in question, "iss Victor."

            "You know, Elena," said Kief in a thieves' whisper, "things have gone our way so much in the past day or so…want to chance it one more time?"

            "Most certainly. Victor, is it?" Elena addressed the bangaa. "Might you be looking for…oh, right. Maybe we should explain. Your clan…I don't know who they were, actually…"

            "The Ssprohmknightss," replied the bangaa quietly.

            "Yes. Sprohmknights. They…sort of left you behind. After the engagement. So we brought you here. Can't have death, after all. Not when it's avoidable, I mean." Elena stopped herself before she babbled any further. "And…are you going back to the Sprohmknights?" 

            "As oppossed to?"

            "Joining us!" Kief put in enthusiastically. "Clan…something."

            "Clan ssomething? That iss some name."

            "We don't have a name yet. We're new. But you're welcome to join, if you'd like," Elena finished. "Or, you know, go back and celebrate victory with the rest of your old clan."

            "Tomorrow," put in Maya, quite forcefully for someone who seemed so soft-spoken. "Afternoon." The others looked at her. She looked back, equally confused. Those words had just…come from nowhere. And they were definitely not what she'd wanted to say—she hadn't wanted to say a thing at all.

            "As for a name," said Victor, "you might conssider calling yourselvess Clan Iriss." 

            "Clan Iris?" Elena asked. "But 'iris' is…is my language, for rainbow." She paused to consider this.

            "Like. Like thing. Yes," began Newander. "To nu mou, rainbows symbolize the calm of nature after a storm, and the idea that even violent elements can create something beautiful."

            "That's…touching," Connor said with some surprise.     

            "In bangaa mythology," said Victor, "a rainbow iss a bridge to the land of the dead."

            "Well then I like it," said Kief cheerfully. "Might as well give them some advance warning."

            "An iris is a flower," said Maya in a whisper. "I like flowers."

            "Well then I suppose it's settled," said Connor, searching for a moment for a kitchen, finding it, and returning with a bottle of some sort of drink and six glasses. "To the naming of Clan Iris. That is," he added, "if Victor consents to joining."

            "Of coursse. By now, my former clan will have forgotten I exissted."

            "Ah. Well. Then a toast," said Elena, about as happy as she'd been since meeting Kief. "To Clan Iris!"

            Six glasses made that happy little 'clink' sound. Where they met, the light from the window caught them and sent a rainbow across the carpet.

*****

Be on the lookout for the next tale of Clan Iris!! (the next one will most likely have chapters, of course. As I said, this was just a prologue.)


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